Giuseppe Verdi - "Celeste Aida," from Aida with Placido Domingo
I wish I could bead bracelets
to adorn the wrists of parents
who never sent their sons to war,
who think wars fall outside of
the realms of last resort,
those who put indomitable
wedges of compassion
into the violent monolith -
I wish my self was bowing
to them instead of throwing up
this permanently closed fist
of bare, bloody victory.
This dawn breeze I have given you,
don't corral and nail it above
ocean currents or caribou trail
maps: each with its color pin,
quickly to find
as your mind travels tomorrows.
These raindrops I have given you,
don't splinter and channel
into speakers and sprinklers:
all encouragements to linger
and weigh choices
in the fresh produce aisle.
Is it because I am God
that you think I have no need
of tenderness?
Felix Mendelssohn - Allegro, Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64
with Michael Rabin (1957)
poem title and text in italics from He and I by Gabrielle Bossis
Georges Bizet - L'amour est un oiseau rebelle, Carmen with Julia Migenes
If you're looking for a heart,
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to fit any need and budget -
choose from a wide selection
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stolid brown, showy red,
fluffy pink or flinty gray.
We provide our customers
with environmentally friendly
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As I work to sharpen my knife,
kindly stop fidgeting and listen to
how much you'll enjoy being carved up.
You'll also rejoice in the knowledge
of the house your bones will make sturdy
and the bountiful lush garden
we'll be able to grow with your blood.
I know, you cannot picture it now,
but I've helped colleagues who have done it
and I'm pretty sure you can trust me
to get it right from the very first try.
I've observed and carefully noted
how we must start with the tongue -
we wouldn't want those words you don't mean
to hang about the house like mad rats.
Up in the tallestest corner of the fartherest tree,
the popinjay finally found what he’d been destined for.
After he put down his bags into a tottering pile,
he conjured a handkerchief to dust the smoothest branch
and sat down cross-legged, prepared to gaze enraptured.
‘Ah, but what could compare, you awesomest and fair!’,
he eventually ventured in faint and trembful whispers.
‘I humbly beg your leave in worshipy words to conceive
to tell of your perfection! The world must pay attention!’
Hope in his beady eyes, he awaited the answer and,
receiving no demur, sprung his travelled bags open.
Out came a dainty table ready with silkest cover,
on which he then assorted, from smallest to the sharpest,
quills, styluses and inks, all polished to a sparkle.
He cocked his head a-side to best view the arrangement,
and in a priding voice spoke again to his wonder,
‘Always for you in my quest I have looked for the worthest.
So long I have pined, and dreamed, and thought what to bring!
And now we finally, now we begin! I vow, I get maudlin!’
Poetry can add its grain to an accumulation of consciousness against the idea that there is no alternative - that we're now just in the great flow of capitalism and it can never be any different - that this is human destiny, this is human nature. A poem can add its grain to all the other grains and that is, I think, a rather important thing to do.- Adrienne Rich
The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has a kenetic force, it sets in motion...elements in the reader that would otherwise remain stagnant. - Denise Levertov
Before, under, and through the wonderful terrible wrestling with words and music there is a state of mind which I’m calling ‘poetic attention’ ... a sort of readiness, a species of longing which is without the desire to possess, and it does not really wish to be talked about. - Don McKay
